This study supports the fact that buddy transfusion may be feasible for healthy well-trained soldiers and does not decrease donor combat performance under ideal circumstances.

Aim To explore the role of tonic motor unit activity in body temperature control. Methods Motor unit activity in soleus and several other skeletal muscles was recorded electromyographically from adult rats placed in a climate chamber on a load sensitive floor, which, together with video monitoring, allowed detection of every successive period of movement and no movement. Results In the absence of movements during rest or sleep, motor unit activity was exclusively tonic and therefore equivalent to muscle tone as defined here. The amount of tonic activity increased linearly in the soleus as the ambient temperature decreased from 32°C to below 7°C, owing to progressive recruitment and increased firing rate of individual units. Brief movements occurred randomly and frequently during rest or sleep in association with brief facilitation or inhibition of motor neurons that turned tonic motor unit activity on or off, partitioning the tonic activity among the available motor units. Shivering first appeared when a falling ambient temperature reached ≤7°C in several muscles except soleus, which was as active between shivering bursts as during them. Conclusion Muscle tone and overt shivering are strikingly different phenomena. Tonic motor unit activity in the absence of movements evokes isometric contractions and, therefore, generates heat. Accordingly, when the amount of tonic activity increases with falling ambient temperature, so must heat production. Consequently, graded muscle tone appears as an important and independent mechanism for thermogenesis during rest or sleep at ambient temperatures ranging from <7°C to at least 32°C.

Warm water and pulsating negative pressure was significantly better at treating hypothermia during laparotomy than forced-air warming.

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Cardiac stroke volume estimated by ultrasound Doppler and by arterial blood pressure curve showed parallel variations beat-to-beat during simulated hemorrhage, whereas impedance cardiography did not appear to track beat-to-beat changes in cardiac stroke volume. The variability in cardiac stroke volume was decreased during mild and moderate hypovolemia and could be used for early detection of hypovolemia.

Moderate exercise increased platelet aggregability of 12 middle-aged men with stable angina pectoris: the mean ADP threshold fell from 4.58 +/- 0.63 to 3.18 +/- 0.41 microM, P less than 0.01. Exercise did not, however, alter platelet aggregability in 12 healthy matched controls. Physical effort approximately doubled the plasma levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline in patients as well as in controls. Under the same conditions the cAMP content of platelets fell in the angina group from 20.86 +/- 1.86 to 17.78 +/- 1.71 pmol 10(-9) platelets, P less than 0.01, while there was no change in control levels. The fall of cAMP could account for the observed increase in platelet aggregability. We speculate that the increased aggregability of platelets in the exercising anginal subjects represents an imbalance between prostacyclin release and haemodynamic changes. The beta 1-selective blocker metoprolol, in usual therapeutic dosages, prevented the observed platelet changes probably by minimizing the haemodynamic disturbances and stimulating release of prostacyclin.

Heat-related illness and mortality increase significantly during heatwaves. Out-of-hospital treatment to avoid elevation of body core temperature (hyperthermia) could be beneficial for selected patients. Negative pressure devices have been proposed as an effective treatment method. This study compared the effects of two devices on healthy volunteers under continuous passive heat stress in a climatic chamber. Nine subjects were studied in a prospective cross-over study on two separate days. Subjects were randomized to treatment with either CoreControl® (CC) or ThermoTube (TT) on the first day. They were exposed to an ambient temperature above skin temperature and high air humidity throughout the experiment. Treatment intended to prevent the development of hyperthermia started after 60 min of passive warming. Core temperature continued to rise during treatment with CC, whereas it dropped slightly and then stabilized during treatment with TT.

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